Al Horford

When we finally saw the ultimate joker Jason Kidd put John Henson back into the starting line-up a couple of weeks ago, there was some excitement, except we all foresaw a pretty low-minute role. Go-go Gadget, minutes limits! With Greg Monroe playing pretty much like we expect Moose to play, and Miles Plumlee signed on a $50 million deal (more than Monta Ellis!), it didn’t seem like Henson would get enough of a role to be fantasy-reliable. Then after a few starts, the Bucks go back to DNP-ing Henson and pissing away their best center. They [shocker!] lost that DNP-Henson game against the Raps (but admittedly played em close), and Kidd must’ve finally gotten a divine intervention, and realized he should stick with Mr. Muppet. And the rest, as they say, is history! Go-go Gadget, winning streak! The Bucks have gone 4-0 on 4 straight Henson starts (given two against the Mess, but whatever), and Muppet Man has gone 14.8/7.8/1.5/0.5/3.0 over that stretch in 25.2 minutes, shooting 55% from the field. That line got accentuated by 20/7/2/1/2 on Saturday night against the Mess, thanks to solid post play and some sick-ass Giannis diming!

But the real stand out for me is the 3.8-4.5 FT over these last 4 starts, good for 83.3%. He’s at 72.7% on the year, after being a mid-50ish% FT shooter over his career. The stroke looks pretty clean, and I think this could be fairly legit. Go-go Gadget, FT coaching! At multi-blocks in 5 straight and settling into a 25 MPG start, Henson is a must-add everywhere. Go-go Gadget, waiver gold! Hopefully you heeded our “spec add in 12ers” advice a week ago, and you got a must-own big! All we need now, is The Joker to keep from Kidd-ing around with the line-up! Here’s what else went down over the weekend in Fantasy Basketball action:

Ahhhhh, DeMarcus Cousins. Build like a brick shithouse (did I get that phrase right?), puts up monster numbers, and the Kings franchise is terrible. We need a change of scenery! After years of speculation and “Lord give me strength” tweets, it looks like this year might finally be the year.

Boogie went nuts last night against the Wizards, going 36/20/4/2/1 (Goromotaro!), but the Kings still got another kick in the SAC in the OT loss. Cousins tried to put this team on his back! Scored the pivotal last two baskets to put it into extra time, but the Wizards are like the Borg. “Resistance is futile!”

Trekkie jokes! Despite the huge line and burning Marcin Gortat on drives, Boogie still did Boogie things, with 5 TO and 3-10 FT. I saw he almost got a technical foul by complaining to the rim! “Is that goal regulation size or WHAT?!” Even though he has 32+ points in the past 4, the D stats are down, and a looming trade would inevitably hurt his value. Actually, staying put would hurt too, as he’d be a major DNP candidate. One Boogie rumor is that he could be playing for last night’s enemy, and reuniting with Kentucky teammate John Wall. It would probably take Bradley Beal and some pieces, likely some picks thrown in there too, but the Wizards look like they need a shake-up, I think we can all agree there. Scotty Brooks can manage superstar personalities, and might be the best coach for Cousins. That said, the Wiz are 4-2 over the past 6, and might be ever-so-slightly turning it around.

With the trade rumor mill churning and the D stats down (giving Boogie a surprisingly-low 19th per-game valuation on BBmonster), I think now is the time to shop him around. You’re feeling great with your returns if you got him in the second round, so maybe a fantasy owner will want to take on Boogie’s temperamental stats more aggressively than an NBA GM. That is, if this hypothetical NBA GM isn’t a big fantasy player! Although if the GM plays in 8-cat, he’ll spend like crazzzzzzy to get Boogie! Here’s what else went down last night in fantasy hoops action:

Could there be anyone else in the NBA that everyone can get behind and root for than Jrue Holiday?! At this rate, he needs to run for prez in 2020! And just to make him even more likable, he’s now wearing rec spec goggles. Soooooooo dope! It’s like he’s playing ball underwater! When he hit this stepback, I’m pretty sure I heard him say “you miss me?!” on the game broadcast, but I have a feeling it was my mind playing tricks on me…

Jrue didn’t take any time to shake off the rust, going 21/2/7/1/1 on 8-14 shooting against the Blazers Friday night (including that sexy crossover), then 22/2/9/1/0 on 9-17 shooting against the Hornets on Saturday. 14:4 AST:TO to start it off, shot over 50% both games… Just so awesome! I know what I’m thankful for! And just to make things EVEN MORE awesome, he rewarded Tim Frazier owners who remained patient, by showing they can co-exist. Bi-partisan! 12/3/8 and 17/5/8 for Frazier in those two games, plus the Pelicans won both of them. And they weren’t against cupcakes either, winning at home against the Blazers then the Hornets. Pass the beignets, we got a party goin on! As a Frazier owner in a couple RCLs, I’m going to hang strong until his numbers tell me otherwise. Unfortunately, I’m not a Jrue owner anywhere though… Depressing! But I don’t even care, Jrue is a boss, and if he beats me in some fantasy matchups, I will tip my cap and be rooting for him anyway. You’re my boy, Jrue! Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy hoops:

There are plenty of options to highlight this week, but everyone beware. Take caution. Put on your orange vests. The muuuuuuuuuuus is loooooooose!

Typically reserved for a football chant, every time the Hawks Mike Muscala hits a three, or even puts on those incredible ‘3’s Goggles‘, the Bucknell grad garners a deep cheers from the fans. Now, listen, I know more than most that the Atlanta fans aren’t the greatest in the world, but when you lose Al Horford and replace some of his minutes with Mike effing Muscala you gotta pull out all the energy you can! And then he goes and actually produces in his 20+ mpg. Unheard of!

13.7/5.0/3.0 on 61.5% shooting with nearly 2 3’s per game is essentially a poor man’s Horford. And that’s exactly what ol’ Mike has done the past week (don’t worry about those boards…that’s the Dwight Howard effect). I, mean, goodness…I wanna be like Mike. Maybe that’s just because I’m white, but for real, there’s a lot of value here.

Here’s the matchup grid updated prior to the 1030 ET time games last night.

I don’t want to go in depth on this today as I’d like to spend some time talking about a specific player below. The next in-depth discussion will be in a couple of weeks when we have a nice full month of data. Just wanted to point out that GSW remains near the top of teams to target, albeit they seem to have tightened it up a bit on the rebounding category compared to last week.

With how the Poppycockers put together their “Super Team”, I admittedly had some worries that the bunch of Tom Cruise-divas they threw out there might make The Poison Goose a mere co-pilot. But not with moxie like this!

Dude doing that at 7’3!!!!! SEVEN THREE!!! Monster game from Kristaps Porzingis last night, going a career-high 35/7/3/1/1 with 3 treys on 13-22 shooting. He played 40 minutes, and put the Poppies on his back. While I was a little apprehensive of his USG, I still think my rank of 23 ended up being ahead of the curve (I would confirm this, but FantasyPros is being a little ish and not making it easy to find draft day expert consensus!). Alas, I was unable to get the Goose in any leagues, and I’m suffering some major poultry withdrawal. Thankfully Thanksgiving is right around the corner! He’s taken 15+ shots the past 7 games, attempting 2 more treys a game than last year, and the TO rate has gone from 1.7 his rookie year to 1.3. His ridiculous 7’3 size makes him too tough for stretch-4s to cover him, and his ridiculous speed and ball-handling makes him too tough for centers. He’s becoming a true matchup nightmare with the added iso moves, and is – I’m going there – a no question first-rounder next year. Slim having him on his REL team has me depressingly reaching for the Grey Goose! Here’s what else went down in fantasy hoops action last night:

As I try to do in my opens, I pull in some real-life news or experience to try and humanize the open. No one wants robot reporting! Just ask Mark Cuban. And that whole situation seems like such a cop out, “I’m going to ban reporters, and the reason why is that I want more human reporting!” Something else is going on there…

Anywho, for this open, I actually have relevant life experience! As previously mentioned regarding Derrick Favors, I too have suffered from IT Band Syndrome. It’s an inflammation of a thin band of nerves that connect from your hip bone on the outside of your leg, past your knee, and connected to your lower leg. Sometimes it can manifest itself in a mad sore hip, but usually it impacts the outside of your knee. When it flares up, it feels like a bone-on-bone “catching” on the outer part of your knee, like you have some horrific scar tissue from a torn meniscus (something I’ve also had). The real annoyance of the injury is you can feel awesome for a few days, then it flares up out of nowhere. You’re just walking normal, and all the sudden that “catch” makes your knee feel like you re-tore something. It’s pretty friggin’ frustrating.

So when I heard Favors was starting last night despite a flare up of knee soreness again on Saturday, I wasn’t the most surprised. I bet it felt great in warm-ups! Then at some point, I’m guessing he felt that same nerve irritation, and he ended up leaving early. I know his frustration. As a nerve thing, this isn’t really a consistent pain-tolerance thing, or a sprain to play through. It feels fine, then a sudden flare up makes your knee feel unstable. I didn’t watch any of this game, but he apparently didn’t look right, and went only 6/2/0/2/0 in 21 minutes. As I mentioned on the Pod, I nabbed some shares of Trey Lyles on Sunday given Favors’ knee issues and knowing this could be a long-term thing, getting rewarded with an 18/5/2/2/0 line with a trey. A trey from Trey! With leaving games early a persistent issue now, I wouldn’t be surprised if Favors gets treatment for a few weeks, and I would take the flier on Lyles where I could. It took me about two months of rehab and a session of dry needling to stimulate the nerves to finally shake my IT issues. Don’t watch if you don’t like needles! Here’s what else happened in fantasy hoops action last night:

So I had some friends in over the weekend, and they straight up Uncle Bucked me. I have no idea if I can use that as a verb, and I do mean the movie, they didn’t show up and immediately get cancelled like the recent TV series attempt. Well, I haven’t really seen either, but I think the point gets across! They went hard and seemed closer together than my lame, grandpa ass. Can’t hang like I used to!

In a similar way, when I took over Razzball Hoops, I sometimes felt like the lame black sheep of the family. Grey over there at baseball was clubbing like that scene from The Social Network, this song was playing, and was talking about how a million page views isn’t cool anymore. A billion page views is! Then football had Sky then Jay running a party boat like they were on Lake Minnetonka. But hoops over here was the ginger outcast, living like Harry Potter under the steps. Somehow and someway, we went to Hogwarts and became as cool as those other Wizards (although, not the awful 2-7 Washington ones…), and as fantasy hoops grew as the best global fantasy game, Razzball Hoops Nation came along with us for the ride. Either that, or you keep reading just because you think to yourself, “this clown is such a disgrace, he wears a jersey that says “Smart” and he’s the biggest doofus around!”

Like initiation into the Razzball fraternal order, we have a huge announcement. Huuuuuuge! Huge Gina! Razzball Basketball now has dedicated Player Pages! Wooooooo, drop the confetti, we’re part of the big boys! From here on out, you’ll see player names hyperlinked with our own internal player page system that imports several layers of stats: Per game stats, per 36, USG calculations, game logs, season stats, and contract information. Player pages also link to recent Razzball posts when the player was last mentioned, and coming soon will include next 7 days and DFS projections. We’re going to be looking into the future! Slow clap to Rudy for his work putting these together, and working with yours truly to hopefully deliver an awesome new tool that will overtake the player pages you use for your leagues. And let us know what you think! If you have additional things you want, things you hate, we want to know! Razzball Hoops is entirely based on our community and comments, so let us know if you like em!

To mark this triumphant new era for Razzball Hoops, I thought long and hard about who to hyperlink first. I do have an unhealthy KCP addiction, and slicky Ricky is oh so spicy, but why not go with the hottest guy in 2016, DeMar DeRozan! Time Magazine‘s sexiest man alive has nothing on DeMar! And nothing on those sleek player pages either! 33/7/4/2/0 against the Poppycockers, giving him 32+ points in 8 of his first 9 games. Invasion from Canada! While he’s obviously more than Wigginsing it, he only has 3 games under 54% from the field, his steals are at a career-high, and he’s likely going to regress a smidge. I’m certainly not giving him away, but if someone thinks his poutines AND gravy are completely legit, maybe you can get a little more value out of him than he’s worth. But if he’s carrying your scoring, ride this wave! Here’s what else went down in fantasy hoops action, now with players linked to their Razzball pages! Woooooo!

One of the joys added to my life since tying the knot a few years ago was the culinary arts. I’m not quite sure what happened first: the desire to impress my wife while we were dating, or my desire to watch Food Network as long as possible. Ok, actually, that’s easy…I’ve been on the good impression train since Day One. It’s called being a man. However, along the way my love for all things cooking developed. Well, not all things. But you put Chef’s Table on the TV and I’m glued. For hours. Secretly, I just want to be a sous chef to someone great.

The sous chef is the numero dos. The Robin to a great chef’s Batman. The Bonnie to someone’s Clyde. You know, the Seth to someone’s Steph. Sure, little brother Seth Curry may have eventually played at the more prestigious North Carolina school, but it’s Steph Curry that’s revolutionizing basketball. You’ll never confuse the two, but lil’ bro Seth’s trying his darnedest in his attempts.

I wanted to call him the sous chef to Dirk’s executive in Dallas, but let’s call it what it is: that designation goes to Harry B (Harrison Barnes, for all you non-hipsters). Barnes has been a boon for the struggling Mavs so far, but while Dirk Nowitzki‘s been nursing a bum achilles, sous chef Curry’s been getting some chicken curry on the menu lately. When given more minutes, and greater confidence to let it fly, Seth Curry’s posted a penchant for steals, points, threes and dimes. If his minutes keep up, we could see more of the same from this past week when he topped the 30 mpg mark. Even with just a slight tick, it looks like Curry could be cookin’ up a significant role on this Mavs team for the season.

And for week? Four games will do just the trick. Here’s the 7 Ahead for Week 4!

Using a little reference there, with regards to the latest election results. It’s a perfect example of how to never just take the statistics in front us as the end all and be all ESPECIALLY when there are non numerical factors in play.

However, that’s done with, and time to focus more important things in life…the 3 Fs–Family, Friends and Fantasy Basketball.

For easier reference I’ve posted last week’s grid as well just to show how the match-up stats have changed as expected due to the low sample size and how one additional game can cause a big change. Current week on the left, last week on the right.